How meaning begins ecologically, before any system, organism, or mind “has” it
If movement 1 dismantled the myth of containerised meaning, movement 2 must answer the natural next question:
If meaning isn’t inside systems, where does it begin?
The answer is not metaphysical, nor psychological, nor computational.
It is ecological.
Meaning begins when a horizon of potential meets a world of affordances —
when a system capable of construal emerges within an already-structured ecology of possible distinctions.
This is semiotic life:
the becoming of meaning before any content crystallises.
A horizon is not a boundary — it is a field of potential distinctions
In relational ontology, a horizon is the range of possible construals available to a system.
Not the representations it stores, nor the categories it contains,
but the space of differences it could potentially cut.
A horizon is:
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structured but not predetermined
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constrained but not fixed
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open-ended but patterned
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perspectival but ecologically anchored
It is the system’s semiotic “breathable atmosphere.”
You don’t look through a horizon —
you construe within it.
Semiotic life begins before any particular meaning is actualised
Think of the horizon as a biological niche, but semiotic:
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it affords certain distinctions,
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excludes others,
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and co-evolves with the system inhabiting it.
Meaning begins not with content but with the possibility of making a distinction that matters.
Before the first phenomenon is actualised,
there is already a patterned field of possible construals.
This is the ecological womb of semiosis.
Meaning is born from the cut, not the content
A system does not “access” meaning.
It creates a phenomenon by cutting through its own potential and the world’s affordances.
This is what it means to actualise meaning:
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A cut is made.
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A phenomenon emerges.
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The horizon shifts.
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The ecology responds.
No phenomenon is unconstrued;
no construal is free-floating.
The cut is the event that activates a relational alignment:
system, horizon, field.
Horizons are not fixed: they evolve with every construal
Each construal slightly reshapes the horizon —
a minimal shift in the system’s potentials.
Not by adding content, but by reconfiguring relations.
A horizon is dynamic:
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constrained by biology, embodiment, training, context;
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expanded by novelty, interaction, co-individuation;
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narrowed by habit, saturation, rigidity.
Systems do not merely act within horizons.
Systems become through them.
Meaning is ecological because horizons are co-produced
A horizon is never the product of a single system’s capacities.
It arises through:
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the evolutionary ecology that shaped the organism
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the social ecology that shaped the culture
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the discursive ecology that shaped the language
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the interactional ecology that shapes the encounter
Meaning is ecological because:
No horizon is self-sufficient.
Every horizon is co-individuated.
Even the interiority of a mind is an ecological production:
a semiotic niche carved through ongoing participation in relational fields.
Semiotic life begins before minds, before organisms, before messages
Meaning emerges when:
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a horizon of possible distinctions,
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a world of ecological affordances,
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and a relational field of interaction,
come into dynamic alignment.
Not when someone thinks something.
Not when a system stores something.
Not when a symbol stands for something.
Meaning begins when a relational ecology allows a system to cut a phenomenon out of potential.
This is the birth of semiotic life.